CommonWealth: Fiscal irresponsibility from Mass Fiscal Alliance

“Fiscal irresponsibility from Mass Fiscal Alliance” — Jonathan Cohn, CommonWealth (12/27/2017)

IN DECEMBER, when you open your mailbox, you’re used to the usual flow of holiday cards from relatives and old friends, as well as end-of-year fundraising solicitations. However, residents of towns from Pittsfield to Hull recently got something else: an incendiary mailer attacking select legislators for their support of the Safe Communities Act and warning of the flood of “illegal immigrants” into their cities and towns. And they weren’t talking about Santa Claus and his elves.

That would have, at least, been closer to the truth.

The source of these mailers was the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, an organization sometimes quoted as a nonpartisan source of “fiscally responsible” expertise in the press, perhaps best known as a thorn in the side of the state’s Democratic Legislature on budgetary affairs. As a supporter of robust public goods, I’m used to disagreeing with Mass Fiscal when it comes to how much we should be investing in our schools, our roads, our public transit, our health care infrastructure, etc. It isn’t that often that I see Mass Fiscal arguing for greater city and state spending, but that’s exactly what’s happening here.

You can read the full article here.

CommonWealth: Make National Voter Registration Day worth celebrating

“Make National Voter Registration Day worth celebrating” — Jonathan Cohn, CommonWealth (9/26/2017)

TODAY IS National Voter Registration Day. It also happens to be the day of Boston’s preliminary election.

But there’s one way that Boston residents won’t be able to celebrate today’s holiday: registering at the polls.

That’s because Massachusetts remains an outlier in New England in not embracing same day registration. Maine has allowed people to register at the polls since the 1970s; New Hampshire, since the 1990s; Vermont and Connecticut joined in more recently. Even Rhode Island has a form of same day registration—albeit just for presidential elections. If our fellow New England states can manage same day registration, so can we.

Read the full article here.

CommonWealth: Democratic supermajority not so super

“Democratic supermajority not so super” — Jonathan Cohn, CommonWealth (5/27/2017)

IN THE YEAR FOLLOWING a presidential election, the Massachusetts Democratic Party updates its platform. A party platform can stand as a defiant statement of goals and ideals, and a roadmap for a legislative agenda and priorities. In today’s national political climate, such aspirational declarations are especially important as they offer voters something to fight for and something to vote for.

The platform released just last week contains new planks on paid family and medical leave, a $15 minimum wage, automatic voter registration, and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences, bolstering what was already, by and large, a progressive document.

On Saturday, June 3, delegates from across the state will convene in Worcester to approve the platform, perhaps with a few amendments to make it stronger.

On Monday, June 5, if the past is any guide, our overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature will proceed to completely ignore it.

Read the full article here.

Boston Globe: Should higher taxes be off the table when legislators discuss next year’s state budget?

“Should higher taxes be off the table when legislators discuss next year’s state budget?” — Boston Globe [opinion] (1/22/2016)

NO

Kevin Loechner

Hull resident, Democratic activist, member of Progressive Massachusetts

House Speaker Robert DeLeo recently declared that the House will propose no new taxes or fees for fiscal 2017. He stated that taxes are “off the table,” a position shared by Governor Charles Baker. This politically driven stance effectively cuts off debate on new sources of revenue to fund state government and strained municipal budgets across the Commonwealth, including this region.

Apparently, this no-new-fees position did not apply to mass transit commuters. MBTA fare increases are coming in July — up to 12 percent on commuter boats, as high as 10 percent on commuter rail. Crunching the data, I calculated that under the maximum fare increase, the last four years will have seen increases of 39 percent to 55.6 percent for train, boat, and bus commuters in the region, not including parking fee increases. And the latest fare increases will not improve service and barely cover the operating deficit.

State aid to local governments has still not recovered to pre-Great Recession levels. For example, Hull’s net state aid in fiscal 2002 was $7.38 million; in fiscal 2016 it was more than 26.6 percent lower, at $5.42 million. Without sufficient local aid, communities have had to seek fee increases or overrides — Weymouth tried and failed this year — or defer capital maintenance, which has been the case in Hull. Constant complaints about increased taxes for diminished services can be found on social media pages across the region.

Opponents of tax increases will talk about waste, fraud, and abuse, or that wealthier people will leave due to increased taxes. But there is not as much waste as conventional wisdom states, and the costs of stopping all fraud and abuse outweighs any savings we would gain. Data also shows that state taxes have little impact on interstate moves. And we have had reforms to state government in recent years, but the resulting financial benefits have fallen short of what is actually needed.

Even those who oppose increased taxes should agree that this is a discussion worth having for maintaining and building a strong Commonwealth. Please consider contacting your legislators and ask them to not take this option off the table in the name of political expediency.